


your fuck boys like socrates

by Anonymous



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 19:42:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9008428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Soonyoung thinks he knows what he wants. The thing is, he thinks too much.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> dear recipient,
> 
> i'm sorry this took so long and probably didn't even turn out the way you wanted ;; your prompts were truly amazing, i wanted to write them all!! i hope this makes your holiday season a little brighter ♡♡♡
> 
> also: thank you mod team for having the utmost patience with me as i stumbled through this process ♡  
>    
>  **warnings: implied underage drinking**

“Who’s that?”

Seungcheol pauses mid-laugh to look over his shoulder to where Soonyoung is gesturing toward with his beer. Damn it, he spoke too early. When Seungcheol turns toward him again, the confusion’s apparent on his face. 

He squints a little at Soonyoung, like he’s trying to make something out on his face in the dim lighting of the small patio. Or maybe he’s just thinking. Soonyoung didn’t claim to be a motherfucking mind reader, after all. “Kim Minkyung,” Seungcheol says, after a moment of wracking his brain. Soonyoung takes another sip of his beer. “Why?”

“No reason,” Soonyoung says, quick enough to be nonchalant, slow enough to not look suspicious. He sneaks in a glance over Seungcheol’s shoulder - Kim Minkyung is laughing at something Jisoo’s said, red cup curled in toward her chest, while Jisoo’s holding a crumpled up shot cup in his right hand, twisting it between his fingers. “Never seen her before,” Soonyoung elaborates vaguely before Seungcheol asks.

“I think she’s a sophomore,” Seungcheol shrugs before Wonwoo calls them over for a game of beer pong.

It’s a Thursday night smack dab in the middle of the semester, which means everyone wants to drink away their bad grades and midterm stress. Soonyoung doesn’t really like parties or frats or drunk people holding up the line for the bathroom with their need to puke, but he does like the occasional pleasant looseness of drinking a few beers and laughing at the dumb shit his friends do when they’re drunk.

And then there’s Hong Jisoo Joshua Hong. He really fucking likes Hong Jisoo Joshua Hong, who just happens to show up to these parties every now and then, which means that Soonyoung kind of has to go to all of them.

It’s a badly kept secret that Soonyoung is in love with Jisoo, maybe because everyone is kind of in love with Jisoo. There’s something about Jisoo that draws people in - the way his eyes always seem to sparkle even though there’s no way he sleeps, the slight upturn of his lips that make it look like he’s constantly amused, his awkward and dorky personality - hook, line, sinker. Soonyoung’s been at the bottom of the fucking ocean since they were introduced during the beginning of last year, through Jeonghan.

“I’m Joshua Hong,” Jisoo had smiled shyly, sticking out a hand. When Soonyoung took it, he found the palm sweaty. “Or Hong Jisoo. Whatever’s easier.”

Soonyoung had smiled back. “Kwon Soonyoung,” he said. “Or Soonyoung Kwon.” Jisoo had laughed at that, sparkly eyes crinkling, and that was when Soonyoung knew he was completely, utterly fucked.

Back then, he’d thought that his crush on Jisoo was tragic. Jisoo was ninety-nine point nine nine percent unattainable (the last hundredth open for miracle’s purpose, because Soonyoung had always been a fucking optimist) - a year older than him, majoring in bioengineering, and as straight as a ruler. Soonyoung had learned all this in the ten minutes after they’d been introduced - just when he’d thought they were hitting it off, Jisoo had wrapped his arm around some girl’s waist. “My girlfriend,” Jisoo had smiled when Soonyoung paused mid-sentence, confused. “Asdfghjk,” he heard Jisoo say instead of her name. Soonyoung grinned instinctively and excused himself to get another drink. Somehow that turned into eleven more shots. 

No one talks about how plastered he got that night. (Except for Jeonghan, who keeps the hundreds of drunk pictures Soonyoung took of himself on his drive somewhere for future blackmailing purposes.)

It wasn’t like Jisoo and his girlfriend from back then were still together. They’d broken up sometime in the middle of the year, and Soonyoung only knew because he’d bothered to ask when he saw Jisoo standing alone, leaning against the wall near the couches where people were making out, awkwardly tapping his left foot to the music at a party a couple weeks after it’d happened. 

“Are you okay?” Soonyoung had asked, even though Jisoo looked entirely too sober for the conversation. He offered up some of his beer, to which Jisoo shook his head. 

“You know how relationships are,” Jisoo sighed in response. He leaned back further, head hitting the wall. “Sometimes they’re great and it’s all good, and then sometimes it’s not and you cut your losses.” Soonyoung tried not to look too closely when Jisoo pressed his lips together before opening them again with a slight pop. “I’m holding up, though. I guess.”

Soonyoung reached out and patted his shoulder. A dangerous energy ran through his palm from the contact. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he thinks he probably slurred out. Jisoo gave him a small smile, either appreciative or pitying at Soonyoung’s drunken state. Whatever it was, it was directed toward Soonyoung and Soonyoung alone, and the power of that sent a numbing bout of electricity coursing through his veins. 

Soonyoung slung an arm around Jisoo’s shoulders, crushing the older boy against his side before he could overthink it. “You know what’ll make you feel better?” he whispered sloppily into Jisoo’s ear. “A shot.”

Surprisingly, Jisoo didn’t push him away. Didn’t squirm uncomfortably at Soonyoung’s hot breath against his neck, didn’t say no. Instead, he chuckled a quiet _sure_ and scrunched up his nose at the Bacardi burning down his throat.

After that, Soonyoung always bothered Jisoo to take a shot with him whenever they ran into each other at parties. Jisoo’s limit was infamously two shots, and once he’d taken those, he turned down everyone else who asked to drink with him. Which meant that everyone had to fight over those two fucking shots, and Soonyoung was determined not to lose.

“You’re not drunk enough,” Soonyoung had pouted one time when he’d been too late. Jisoo laughed at that, skirting around the direction of the kitchen that Soonyoung was trying to push him into. 

“That’s kinda the point,” he’d said. It was then that he learned Jisoo was relatively straight edge, and Soonyoung didn’t know why he found that incredibly hot.

So after seeing the dismal beer pong crowd (“I’m not playing,” Soonyoung said, pointing an accusatory finger towards Wonwoo’s team, where Jihoon was setting up the cups. Jihoon, who’d been making Mingyu drink for him the entire night, on the grounds that he couldn’t get too fucked up because he still had to finish up his music arrangement for class once he got back. “That’s not fucking fair!”), Soonyoung makes his way over to Jisoo and Kim Minkyung, who are both on their phones now that the conversation’s lulled to a silence. 

“Jisoooooo,” Soonyoung whines, arm circling Jisoo’s waist. Jisoo flinches from the sudden contact, eyes flickering warily from Soonyoung to Minkyung. Minkyung looks up from her phone. “Let’s take a shot!” 

Usually, Jisoo put up with Soonyoung’s tipsy touchiness with a laugh and Soonyoung takes full advantage of that fact. So when Soonyoung feels Jisoo’s hand rest on his forearm, trying to pry it off his waist, some part at the base of his skull goes numb. “I’m done for the night, Soonyoung,” he says, smiling, but there’s a strain in his voice. Soonyoung frowns, pressing his face into Jisoo’s neck persistently.

“But you always take a shot with me,” Soonyoung mumbles into Jisoo’s skin. When he turns his gaze toward Minkyung, she’s just watching them with a polite, unreadable smile on her face. Soonyoung smirks before deliberately leaning closer to Jisoo.

Jisoo reaches between them, putting his hands on Soonyoung’s shoulders, and shoves. “Not tonight,” he says once they’re separated. With the distance between them now, Soonyoung can see the hint of annoyance on Jisoo’s face. 

He’s about to open his mouth to ask why when it clicks. Minkyung’s still standing next to them, face impassive. Jisoo wipes his palms against his faded jeans and Soonyoung wishes he didn’t want to run his hands over Jisoo’s slim thighs instead, wishes he took the hint sooner, wishes he was the one Jisoo wanted. 

“Well,” Soonyoung snaps. The alcohol mixes with jealousy and it stings like something sour on his tongue, enough to make his eyes narrow. “Have a good fuck, then.”

He walks away before he can see Jisoo’s reaction but he can hear the awkward, “Fuck you, Soonyoung,” behind him, words clumsy and unfamiliar on his tongue, and it strikes him that he’s never heard Jisoo cuss before. Interesting, Soonyoung thinks as Seungcheol catches his arm, still trying to drag him into that dumb beer pong game, and asks _what’s up with you?_ through the alcohol in his breath when he sees that Soonyoung’s not paying attention to him, shaking him off. 

Interesting how he could be Jisoo’s first in that sense. Soonyoung leans against the railing of the small balcony, letting the night wash over him, an uncomfortable numb from the cold and everything he’d just done tingling through his body. He shivers from it all. 

 

 

Nayoung keeps looking at him like she wants to say something. Soonyoung sees the way she’s holding her fork limp in her hands, stabbing at her lunch every now and then without meaning to get anything. A good number of lettuce leaves have accumulated on the prongs.

“And so,” Soonyoung continues without missing a beat. “I was late because someone fucking reset my alarm on accident. Bet it was Junhui, god damn it.” He shoves in a mouthful of rice in contempt.

“I thought you said this story was about how much you hated your TA,” Nayoung says, gratuitously playing along for now. Spending basically their entire lives together did that, Soonyoung guesses. Sometimes he was thankful that he’d spent the afternoons after primary school and junior high at Nayoung’s apartment, one floor under his, trying to distract Nayoung from doing her homework by dancing to an imaginary beat in absolute silence, her grandfather who was supposed to be watching them sleeping in front of the TV. Other times Soonyoung wished he could leave behind the story where he wet his pants in first grade, especially now that he was in university but you know. Give and take.

“Yeah!” Soonyoung remembers, slamming a fist on the table. “I was only one minute late. _One fucking minute._ And then my TA gave me a five minute penalty on my quiz. What the fuck, really.”

Nayoung lets out a _hmm_ to that, expression on her face unchanged. Knowing Nayoung, Soonyoung doubts that she’d ever been late to anything in her life. He laughs, watching her try to sympathize for a moment.

She stuffs the lettuce in her mouth. Soonyoung sips his water, already done with his meal. They settle into an unnerving but habitual silence before Nayoung finishes chewing.

“Did something happen with you and Jisoo?” she finally asks, like she’s been waiting to this whole time. 

Soonyoung almost chokes on his water. “What makes you think that?” he grimaces. 

Nayoung shrugs, going back to stabbing lettuce. Of course Nayoung would figure out. Bioengineering at their school was a small, tight-knit major, and Jisoo and Nayoung were both seniors. Jisoo knew Nayoung knew Soonyoung and Soonyoung knew Nayoung knew Jisoo - they were all related, maybe a few times removed. “He told me you were acting weird the other night,” she says. “I told him it was probably you just being you but he didn’t look convinced.”

“Gee, thanks,” Soonyoung deadpans. Nayoung gives him her usual stone-faced look, waiting for him to continue. 

It’s times like these that some tiny part of Soonyoung wishes he could have these conversations with Seungcheol instead, who had went to the same school as him since fifth grade. Except Seungcheol was a fucking softie and cut Soonyoung way too much slack, and as a result, Soonyoung just continued to bullshit himself into bad situations (see: his second semester of freshman year, when Nayoung had holed herself up in her room, studying). You couldn’t blame Soonyoung for just wanting some pity every once in awhile, though Nayoung was the one who had told Soonyoung that Jisoo was bi.

It’d been sometime last year, after Soonyoung was sure that there was no way Jisoo couldn’t know that Soonyoung had been almost throwing himself at him. Through their conversations, Soonyoung had found out that Jisoo was a church boy (“Yeah, I used to sing in the choir,” Jisoo had said once. Soonyoung managed to pick up this fact even though Jisoo had very, very distractingly pushed his hair back with his fingers) and not as innocent as he’d initially believed. They’d had an entire conversation about it - religion, not the lack of Jisoo’s innocence - and it’d been pretty interesting when Soonyoung hadn’t been blatantly staring at the upturned corners of Jisoo’s lips.

“How do you fall out of love with Hong Jisoo?” Soonyoung had sighed dramatically to Nayoung a couple weeks after that, banging his head on the table. Some of the students sitting nearby them glanced over, glaring, but it wasn’t like people hadn’t hit their heads against the tables in the library before, especially during exam season. 

Nayoung had looked at him, eyebrows slightly furrowed in confusion either from the assignment she was working on, or what Soonyoung had said. “Why do you say that?” she asked, tapping some numbers into her calculator.

“Like,” Soonyoung sighed again, gesturing wildly with his hands. “You know.” Nayoung glanced at him from between looking at her calculator and writing something down on her homework. “He’s straight?”

Nayoung stopped writing. She set her pencil down. “I don’t think so,” she said. 

Soonyoung felt his eyes bugging out. “What?”

“I don’t think so,” Nayoung repeated slowly, as if she was afraid Soonyoung couldn’t digest the words, tapping her pencil against her textbook. 

“But he had a girlfriend?” Soonyoung asked in disbelief.

Nayoung shook her head. “I think he’s bi,” she said, turning back to her homework now that she was sure she’d gotten the message across. Soonyoung squawked. “I mean, yeah he’s dated a lot of girls, but I’m pretty sure he also dated Jeonghan for two weeks in freshman year.”

Soonyoung had only banged his head against the table a couple more times at that, wondering if it was all a dream. It wasn’t. Nayoung didn't even look up from her homework.

A few weeks later, he’d seen Jisoo at a party, making out with some guy on the sofa. Soonyoung might’ve jacked off to that mental image a few days later. 

He frowns, present-day Nayoung still watching him, waiting. “Well,” he starts, reluctantly. “I might’ve said something _kind of_ mean when he was trying to pick up a girl?” 

Nayoung doesn’t even look surprised. Soonyoung wishes she did, but then again, Nayoung didn’t emote much usually anyway. “Again?” she says and Soonyoung lowkey feels slapped in the face. “Why didn’t you give him some space?”

Soonyoung scowls. “He was too good for that girl,” he frowns, stealing a lettuce leaf from Nayoung’s salad. Nayoung doesn’t even bat an eyelash, looking at him straight-on as he sticks it into his mouth. 

“You don’t even know her,” Nayoung points out gently. Soonyoung hates how politically correct Nayoung had to be all the time. 

But Soonyoung hated not having the last word more, even when both he and Nayoung already know he’s lost. “But still,” he mutters. 

Nayoung sighs, shaking her head. “Why can’t you be a good friend to him?”

Soonyoung looks down at his hands, upturned and empty and selfishly yearning to hold onto something. He stares, eyes crossing, lost in their emptiness. “I don’t know,” he says quietly. Lies quietly. Nayoung gives him a small lips-pressed-together smile, trusting that he’ll figure it out on his own, but truthfully, Soonyoung already knows the reason why.

Because Soonyoung doesn’t want to just be friends with Jisoo. Instead, he wants to drag his tongue down Jisoo’s skin and press their hips together and lie beside him, having deep conversations until they fall asleep and then wake up in the morning to Jisoo’s soft voice telling him to open his eyes and talk until they fall asleep all over again. And because he doesn’t have that, he settles for pushing for Jisoo’s attention, pushing until Jisoo obliges Soonyoung’s arm looping around his waist as they take a shot together, pushing until Jisoo laughs at something Soonyoung says in between their discussions about dreams and the future, pushing until Jisoo pushes him back, pushes him away.

Soonyoung’s only a bad friend because he doesn’t even want to be Jisoo’s friend.

 

 

The night starts like this: Soonyoung and Jisoo are at a party.

Soonyoung’s sober this time, lying on Seungcheol’s friend’s bed, the pounding music and loud voices muffled in his ears as if he was underwater, holding his breath with eyes closed. Just when his lungs start to singe, this memory replays, rippling in the ocean water:

 _Soonyoung plays nice with the other kids._ He scraped his foot against the concrete in front of his third grade classroom, waiting for his mother to finish talking with his teacher. A sigh. _But he's a little selfish._

 _What do you mean?_ And Soonyoung had never heard his mother sound so disappointed. He scraped his sandal faster and faster over the sound of the rest of their conversation and let Jihoon decide that they play puzzles during recess the next day, even though Soonyoung found it boring. 

The thing is, Soonyoung feels like a liar when he gives people what they want. There's got to be some point, he thinks, where he reaches his limit of selflessness and bounces back to how he'd been when he was nine, dictating how he and his friends spent their sixty minute lunch breaks on the playground. 

“Soonyoung,” someone says, shaking him awake. He blinks, eyes not opening all the way, lids heavy. “Hey, Soonyoung.” 

Fuck. It's Jisoo. They haven't seen each other since that one time Jisoo told him to fuck off and Soonyoung had been kind of banking on the hope that they wouldn't run into each other, maybe ever. Or at least until he didn’t relive that moment every time his mind went on autopilot. 

“Fucking shit,” Soonyoung groans, turning face down into the sheets. Jisoo’s hand starts tentatively stroking his back, just the soft trail of fingertips, after a moment of indecision. 

“Hey, hey,” Jisoo says, softer this time, like Soonyoung’s someone who needs saving. Leave it to choir boy Hong Jisoo to act Messiah. “How’re you feeling?”

Soonyoung turns slightly and cracks open an eye. “I'm not drunk, you know,” he mumbles. 

Jisoo looks unconvinced. “Sure you aren't,” he frowns, sitting back before standing up again. “Tylenol? Water? Bathroom?”

“Why are you even here?” Soonyoung asks, turning over to finally face Jisoo. His face is half shaded in the dark, a cheek colored pale yellow from the dim lighting of the bedside lamp. It catches in his eyes. Soonyoung watches as Jisoo wets his lips in thought, watches as he imagines tangling that tongue with his. “You've got better things to do,” he goes on as Jisoo still tries to formulate a response.

“Oh.” Something seems to click in Jisoo's mind, eyes darkening. Soonyoung starts to feel this _thing_ , this feeling, settling in his chest, pressing against his lungs, full of want for something, something that tangibly exists, unnamed. “Like Minkyung?”

Soonyoung tugs at the front of his own hair. The sides are longer than he last remembered them being. “ _Shit,_ ” he hisses. “I'm fucking sorry, Jisoo.”

Jisoo just laughs. Surprisingly, he crawls into the space next to Soonyoung on the bed before laying down beside him. “Yeah,” Jisoo agrees absentmindedly, looking at the ceiling, Soonyoung looking at him. “That wasn’t very nice.” 

They're close enough now that the side of Jisoo's hip presses against his own, Jisoo's left ankle crossing over Soonyoung's right. Close enough that Soonyoung can smell the mustiness and sweat on Jisoo's t-shirt from the party on the other side of the closed door, close enough for Soonyoung's heart to pound faster with adrenaline, close enough for Soonyoung to feel bold.

“You know what would be nice?” Soonyoung hears himself say. His voice cracks. Jisoo turns to look at him.

“What?” Jisoo breathes out with a laugh in his voice and in that moment, Soonyoung doesn't think he's wanted anything the way he wants Hong Jisoo. 

He leans closer. There's a question in Jisoo's eyes that disappears when he closes them, leaning forward to meet Soonyoung's lips with his own.

Contrary to popular belief, Soonyoung doesn't see fireworks behind closed lids, or feel his heart burst, completely full and satiated, when he realizes Jisoo is reciprocating. Instead, there's an underwhelming sense of emptiness pooling in his fingertips where he's cradling Jisoo's face, tongue licking into his mouth. The more they make out, the more Soonyoung gets the sense that this is it but also _isn't_ it and it's not until Jisoo's long fingers press against his shoulders, breaking them apart so that they're looking at each other from a distance again, the darkness pooling between them and the laugh completely gone from Jisoo's eyes, that Soonyoung finally understands that something’s wrong.

Soonyoung's been rejected before, from the clean cut and harsh _no’s_ to the most roundabout _we need to talk’s._ The part where it gets complicated is the fact that Soonyoung's also a sore loser, so he doesn't accept it more than half the time - he just has the conscience to keep his thoughts that he deserves more than what he ends up with to himself. 

But then there's the _I'm sorry, but…_ hanging unsaid from Hong Jisoo's pretty, parted, swollen lips and Soonyoung doesn't want any of it. What he wants instead is to desperately kiss those words back into Jisoo’s mouth so Jisoo could eat them and rethink them, because Jisoo owed him that much. Because all this fucking time I was in love with you for this. He might've said it aloud. And you fucking knew, didn't you? 

Jisoo looks at Soonyoung's feet. Soonyoung doesn't even remember standing up from the bed. Something's ringing in his head and it makes him think of church bells and trying to imagine Jisoo singing in the choir - as some kind of icon that he wasn't supposed to worship between his slim thighs and thin lips because that started wars and Soonyoung blindly stepped into the battleground anyway, unaware that he was going to bleed.

Jisoo's fingers twisting in the sheets are the last thing Soonyoung remembers seeing before he slams the door behind him.

 

 

Nayoung thinks Soonyoung’s overthinking things. Seungcheol thinks Soonyoung’s straight. Jeonghan thinks:

“You guys are both such dicks.”

Soonyoung closes his eyes, rubbing his face with his palms. He probably needed that. He hasn't slept much in days - not really because of Jisoo but because he had spent the last few nights pulling all-nighters to finish his programming assignment...but also kind of because of Jisoo - and his insides have reached that point where they feel half-boiled to death and lukewarm after cooling. 

Jeonghan had told him his outsides didn't look much better when they first met up. Soonyoung could always count on Jeonghan for shit like that. 

“Great,” Soonyoung replies, dryly, taking a sip of his coffee. It nearly burns the tip of his tongue off. Okay, someone in the universe had to be conspiring against him now.

Jeonghan just laughs because he's that kind of person. But he's also the kind of person who hands Soonyoung a copious amount of napkins to wipe off what dribbled out of his mouth and onto his white shirt. Soonyoung likes to think those extra napkins symbolizes how much Jeonghan actually cares, but like. You could never tell. “You're worse than Wonwoo right now, and he can't tell the difference between coffee and Junhui’s paint water last time I checked,” Jeonghan elaborates, as if Soonyoung really needed to know that.

“But seriously,” Soonyoung groans, chin on the table so his teeth clack together uncomfortably every time he over enunciates. “What the fuck. He's been playing me this whole time and.” Soonyoung feels his forehead crease. “After one kiss. One fucking kiss! He just up and decides _nah, not this fucker?_ ”

Jeonghan frowns at him. “I mean, Jisoo's not a saint,” he says, considering. “Honestly, I got lowkey sociopath vibes from him when he told me he'd rather stay home playing Neko Atsume than get laid.”

Soonyoung narrows his eyes, confused. “Does that mean I lost to a virtual cat collecting app?”

Jeonghan throws his hands up in a “you said it, not me!” defense before putting his hands back around his empty coffee cup. “Jisoo's my friend but even I think he's a douche when he's fucking around,” he shrugs. “It's like he doesn't know how the other person's gonna feel if he just up and leaves right in the middle of making out.” Jeonghan shakes his head. Soonyoung takes another sip of his coffee. It’s still fucking hot. “It probably doesn't even cross his mind. Jisoo's a hormonal dumb ass like that sometimes.” Jeonghan sighs. “Lets his dick do the thinking.” 

Soonyoung chokes on his saliva at that. Nothing Jeonghan said sounded much like the Jisoo Soonyoung had gotten to know: stable, organized, probably planned-out-the-rest-of-his-life-down-to-his-third-daughter’s-name Jisoo. “But he had a girlfriend,” he argues.

“Nayeon?” Jeonghan asks. He taps his chin. “Well, I guess. That was one relationship Jisoo didn't fuck up.” 

There's a question itching under Soonyoung's skin, and it's been there since he'd sat down across from Jeonghan thirty minutes ago. Soonyoung sucks in a breath. “Then what about when you dated Jisoo?”

Jeonghan’s expression twists, as if he's eaten something extremely gross. Just when Soonyoung thinks he's hit a spot that he shouldn't have, Jeonghan says, “Soonyoung, don't insult me like that.”

“I swear, people told me you guys had been together - ”

“If you're not gonna date Jisoo when he rejected you after a stress make-out,” Jeonghan iterates. “Then what makes you think I'd date Jisoo when he called me Seungcheol after we'd spent the whole party talking?”

Soonyoung wonders if Jisoo knows that Jeonghan goes around slandering his name. And if what Jeonghan is saying is actually the truth. He rubs his face with his hands again. “He fucking owes you big time.” Thinks about it. “He fucking owes _me_ , for fucking with me for so long.”

Jeonghan’s looking at him, eyebrows raised, when Soonyoung removes his hands from his face. “But what would you want that he could give you?” he says, like he doesn't understand what Soonyoung's getting at. Or maybe out of genuine curiosity. 

“Shit, I don't know,” Soonyoung frowns, sarcasm dripping from the corners of his mouth. He thought Jeonghan would agree with him. “Like actually giving me a chance?”

His coffee’s finally gone lukewarm between his palms. Jeonghan presses his lips together, like he wants to tell Soonyoung something, but at the same time doesn't know if he should. “I just,” he starts. Pauses, thinking. Shakes his head, the longer strands in the front falling into his face. “I don't think Jisoo owes you anything. And I don't think you owe him anymore of your time, either.”

Soonyoung feels betrayed. All he wanted was some reassurance, someone who agreed with him, and instead, he got this. Maybe that was the problem. “What about an apology?” he mutters, the words acerbic to his own ears. Jeonghan either doesn't hear him, or pretends he doesn't. 

 

 

Kim Minkyung’s apparently in his comp sci class. 

This fact completely flies over Soonyoung's head until she takes the seat beside him, still laughing at something her friend, who's sitting on the other side of her, said. When she turns around to grab her laptop out of her backpack, they have an awkward bout of eye contact.

“Hi,” Soonyoung smiles, still feeling guilty. Minkyung shoots him a wary glance as she smiles back, an even, closed lip kind of thing. She sticks a piece of gum between her teeth as he hears her friend do her best to whisper _who’s that?_ quiet enough like Soonyoung won't notice.

“No one,” Soonyoung hears Minkyung reply, voice full volume. It's naturally pretty quiet. The sound of her chewing gum is more jarring than her hard consonants. Soonyoung wonders if he should be grateful or insulted that Minkyung doesn't even want to spite him a little bit as the lecture begins, the smell of her mint gum so strong that it tastes like Soonyoung's chewing it himself.

He spends the rest of lecture going in between being hyper aware of Minkyung sitting next to him and thinking about Jisoo. Minkyung probably thought Soonyoung was an asshole and Jisoo...also probably thought Soonyoung was an asshole. Soonyoung didn't claim to a motherfucking good person, after all, but it's an unsettling idea that Minkyung's sitting right next to him, possibly cussing Soonyoung out in her head.

“Hey,” Soonyoung whispers when Minkyung's friend leaves mid-lecture for the bathroom. She doesn't look up from her laptop screen. “I'm sorry.”

She looks at him at that. “For what?” she frowns. 

“You know,” Soonyoung sighs. He gestures with his hands as if she'll get it. Minkyung's still frowning at him. “Party about a month ago, a guy named Hong Jisoo?” 

She types something the professor says down in her notes. Pretty _and_ studious. No wonder Jisoo liked her. Soonyoung’s officially lost at life. “Oh,” she says. “It's fine.” Like it's no big deal.

Soonyoung slumps back in his chair. “Okay,” he mumbles, wondering if there's a trap laid out for him somewhere, wondering if this could really go that smoothly, because he's used to getting burned in the end. 

And then - why wasn't Soonyoung “fine?” Soonyoung briefly registers that the professor's saying something about their next exam, and it's only then that he realizes that he hasn't been paying attention to the lecture at all. He wonders if it’ll overstep some boundaries to ask Minkyung for her notes. Probably. Why was it so hard to let things concerning Jisoo go, so hard to let Jisoo go? 

Minkyung's friend comes back from the bathroom. “What did I miss?” Soonyoung hears her whisper to Minkyung. 

“Nothing.” Soonyoung wishes his feelings for Jisoo could be packaged into one neat, two syllable word, loaded onto the back of a cargo ship and carried far, far away. And once the ship’s just a dot in the midst of a horizon of blue, Soonyoung would think about the whole thing with a hearty laugh and appreciate how rose he painted Jisoo's image with a lighthearted muttering of _ah, youth_ and see how much he'd moved on from then.

 

 

The way it actually goes, the ship leaves the dock but the carrier's empty and the package is still sitting at Soonyoung's feet, open with the contents pouring out onto the concrete, nearly impossible to wrap back up. It's the problem, staring Soonyoung down, straight in the eye. And the problem is: Soonyoung still likes Hong Jisoo Joshua Hong.

Still really fucking likes him.

 

 

So: Soonyoung and Jisoo are at a party. 

This time, Soonyoung's following Junhui and Wonwoo to take a shot. He laughs at some offhand comment Jeonghan makes and Mingyu’s already fallen asleep on the couch somehow. 

“Let's draw dicks on his face!” he hears Seokmin suggest over the roar of too many intimate conversations going on all at once. He thinks he sees Minkyung's eyes through the spaces between bodies and faces, warily regarding him again. Junhui tugs on Soonyoung's fingers - the ones he can reach - with a _come_ on, _Soonyoung,_ and then Wonwoo somewhere on his left goes _forget it, let's leave him behind._ Soonyoung sticks his tongue out in the general direction of where his voice came from, laughing a nonchalant, “Fuck you!” and then he's twisting his way through the crowd when he bumps into someone particularly hard and then -

“Whoa.” Someone grips onto Soonyoung's shoulders before he can go crashing into someone else. There's a blur of a cheek, a corner of an eye, and a jaw and then Soonyoung literally feels his world stop. “Soonyoung?” Jisoo says, nervous, like he'll be wrong.

Some part of Soonyoung wants him to be. Some part of Soonyoung wants to ask Jisoo if he really had to be such a dick to him, and then the other part replies back _but you were a dick too_ so Soonyoung's back where he started.

Another traitorous part of Soonyoung's heart starts pounding faster in his chest. He thinks it might fly out and hit Jisoo in the face.

“Oh,” Soonyoung laughs, more breath than mirth. “Hi, Jisoo.” He's pretty sure Junhui and Wonwoo have left him behind now. Soonyoung’s just not so sure if he cares.

Jisoo gives him a pained smile. He looks at Soonyoung like he has something to say to him but no words to say it, so instead his mouth hesitates around a vowel and it makes him look a bit like a fish on land that needs to be put back inside water.

Soonyoung wants an apology. And he thinks Jisoo's trying to find a way to give him one, eyes cast down at the toes of his once-white sneakers, arms crossed in front of him, trying to push his sincerity in it. It's not like Soonyoung doesn't think he means it, or doesn't want it. 

It's just that he realizes he wants more. Soonyoung wants something that he doesn't have a name for, something he might not have a name for, and it might be something Jisoo can give him. It might not. 

But what he knows he doesn't want is Jisoo looking at Soonyoung like he's a guilty piece of his past that he has to move on from. 

“Hey,” Soonyoung says, rubbing his forehead with a palm, half-laughing. Jisoo, who'd just made an incomprehensible sound, snaps his mouth shut almost comically. “Let's just start over.” 

He sticks out a hand. Jisoo regards it slowly, as if might suddenly grow teeth. “Kwon Soonyoung,” he grins. “Or Soonyoung Kwon.”

It takes a moment for the recognition to flash in Jisoo's eyes. Soonyoung feels his fingers shake, afraid Jisoo will just walk away and leave him there, and that his version of “starting over” was “never meeting Kwon Soonyoung.”

But then Jisoo shyly smiles back, taking Soonyoung's hand. It's a little sticky against his own, the palm sweaty. “I'm Hong Jisoo,” Jisoo says, his eyes crinkling with a smile. “Or Joshua Hong. Whatever's easier.”

Soonyoung thinks he should mind that he's completely, utterly fucked. But right now, sweaty from too much body heat, Jisoo's smile tinted blue from the lights, his heart feels so full that he can't bring himself to care.


End file.
